Masego Pitso : Creative Futures journal – Week One
January 23, 2023
The phrase that would best encompass the week would be at ease but ready to launch. This week focused on music working with Allen and Zara, and getting the cast acquainted with one another and the music of the peace and how it moves and develops in the play. It has been an incredible week and eye opening into what goes into the process of learning. refining and essentially building a song. Amongst this we also had a Consent workshop with Cessalee Stovall this was a great session to have on the first day of rehearsals and even as the week continued having Cessalee in the room as someone the cast can reach out to.
The session was split into four parts and all member of the creative team in the room was encouraged to participate. The session slowly built up to physical touch and gave those participating the language to be able to articulate their boundaries both in the workshop and provide the group with examples of how that would look and sound in the context of work.
The middle of the week we had a dialect session with Angela Sullen, this was an important session for the cast to get into the text with dialect. An observation would be that it might be worth the cast beginning as soon as possible to incorporate the dialect work into the rehearsal space, when asking for feedback, when talking to one another, for the mouth to get used to moving in that way.
As we progressed the days focused on music and movement and an observation that was made was that moving into script work in the coming week it would be worth having a music, movement, and text session to get the cast used to working on all three at the same time. On Friday we had the afternoon session dedicated to doing exactly this and it was beneficial to all the cast to cement (not marry) the movement.
Overall feeling very happy to be in this position and ready to be seeing the building blocks come together next week.
Masego Pitso is a South African/ Australian inter-disciplinary artist. Pitso’s performances have been, Tracey in Chewing Gum Dreams (Green Door Theatre Company and Red Line Productions), Chorus C in M.Rock (Australian Theatre for Young People). Pitso will make her mainstage debut in the co-production of Is God Is by Aleshea Harris at Melbourne Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company and. Pitso has been nominated for Sydney Theatre Awards 2022, Best Performer in a Leading Role in an Independent Production and winner of Best Newcomer.
Riverside’s National Theatre of Parramatta is committed to capacity building in Western Sydney and has launched a Creative Futures Program for creatives, production and back stage opportunities. The scheme provides on the job learning and networking opportunities, enabling each participant to advance their careers within their nominated field. This program is by invitation only.